important area or doctors on a tumor
board trying to determine a treatment
plan for a patient.

In most situations, people talk toeach other while using their own per-sonal devices like laptops and mobilephones. They are likely to share infor-mation on a large monitor or screen,and in some cases, they have multiplemonitors or screens. They often need tocreate meeting minutes or a summary.If additional information is not avail-able, homework after the meeting isassigned to research information fromthe Web or relevant databases, performfurther analysis, and deliver a report tothe next meeting. The discussion aimsto avoid biases and wasting time gener-ated by unnecessary distractions anddebates. Meanwhile, the mechanismHere, we introduce a vision for thefuture cognitive and immersive “situ-ations room,” an immersive, interac-tive, intelligent physical environmentable to augment group intelligencein complex problem solving, decisionmaking, and more. It will enable auser experience based on a rich, im-mersive conversation loop betweengroups of people and intelligent sys-tems. The room with “eyes” and “ears”will be able to capture and recognizewhat that group is talking about andworking on. The room with “mind”will understand the context of groupactivity, deliver related informationand analytical results, perform factchecking, validate hypothesis, andfacilitate group decision making. Theroom with “mouth” (to speak) and“hands” (to draw, paint, or display vi-sual feedback) will be able to join thegroup discussion and present mul-tiple points of view to its participantsthrough immersive storytelling.

WHY A SITUATIONS ROOM

When considering human-computer
interaction, whether in, say, an office
with laptops or a car with a mobile
phone, an individual user is traditionally the sole focus. But many situations involve groups of people working together, especially in situations
involving complex problems. These
people often reflect diverse backgrounds and domain expertise. One
can easily imagine a group of people
in a global company trying to decide
on a big investment in a strategically